If you’re thinking about purchasing an investment property to use as a vacation rental within the Bend city limits, take note: As of April 15, the number of potential properties you have to choose from just decreased significantly, while the process to establish your legal status as a vacation rental just became more complicated and the cost to maintain your vacation-rental status just increased significantly. You can also expect a lot more scrutiny directed your way, not just from your neighbors but from the City of Bend. Why? Earlier this month, the Bend City Council, prompted by some very vocal complaints of residents of two westside Bend neighborhoods, revised its policy about overnight rentals, instituting a number of new requirements, fees, and policies, and establishing a density limit on the number of what it has now dubbed “short-term rentals” (previously known as “vacation-home rentals”). What exactly qualifies as a “short-term” rental (STR), as defined by the City of Bend? “Any dwelling unit or portion of a dwelling unit rented fewer than 30 days per tenant. This term includes whole-house rentals, as well as the rental of up to two individual rooms in a house while the owner is present.” Moving forward, not only will you need a land-use permit to legally operate a short-term rental (which verifies that the property site meets City standards), but you’ll also need a license (which governs how the rental is managed). Two types of STR land-use applications have been created: “Type I” and “Type II.” Which type of permit a particular property requires depends upon three things: the zoning district of the property;...

With the new year, I decided to revamp the market reports I provide each month. Often, potential buyers in Central Oregon aren’t just considering a single community. So, rather than organize them by location (Sisters, Tumalo, Bend) as I have in the past, moving forward I’m going to be examining three key market segments: the number of Active listings, the number of sales and the price of Active listings. I’ll still be focusing on the three primary communities that the bulk of my clients are drawn to (Sisters, Tumalo, Bend) — and since many of those clients are buying homes on acreage, I’ll include both Single Family Residential listings and Residential With Acreage listings. Below are three graph overviews of real estate activity (the number of Active listings, the number of sales and the price of Active listings) from October 2013 through February 2015 for Bend, Tumalo and Sisters, based on data provided by MLSCO on April 1, 2015. Because of an extended trip followed by a pretty ruthless virus, I got a late start assembling stats. As a result, the number of Active listings and the median list price figures for January and February 2015 are approximate. Thinking of making a move to Central Oregon? I’d love to help you find the perfect Central Oregon property. You can reach me by phone or text at (541) 480-0987 or by email. About the Author Lisa Broadwater, GRI, CDPE, is a Central Oregon-based real estate professional who specializes in listing and selling homes, especially in Sisters, Tumalo, Bend and Redmond. ...

The fourth-quarter real estate market statistics were released recently by the Multiple Listing Service of Central Oregon. What do they tell us? Well, looking at Central Oregon as a whole, sales are down a bit, days on market are down quite a bit –- and prices are up. Again. Lack of inventory helps explain those three key stats: With fewer options to choose from, ready-to-relocate buyers are more willing to go to bat for a property, via multiple-offer bidding wars — which helps drive prices up. Combine higher sales prices with fewer options for buyers, and you see fewer sales. Meanwhile, extremely low inventory means fewer days on market – all those circling buyers just waiting for the right home are snapping up the best new listings as soon as they hit the MLS. While it’s great to look at the big picture, real estate is a decidedly localized industry. So, not surprisingly, within Central Oregon the trends for the last quarter of 2014 fluctuate from community to community. Bend’s Single Family Residential listings, for example, saw a negligible drop in the number of sales (-.88 percent), while Sisters’ Residential with Acreage sales saw a sizable drop (-20.48 percent) and Redmond’s Single Family Residential listings saw a sizable increase –- 16.41 percent. Most Central Oregon markets saw a fairly dramatic drop in the number of days that a home was on the market: a 29.35 percent decrease for Sisters Single Family Residential listings, a 19.79 percent decrease for Redmond’s Residential with Acreage listings. However, the days on market for Bend’s Single Family Residential listings increased 4.46 percent. Then there’s...

If you’re looking for a one-of-a-kind home in perhaps the most sought-after neighborhood in Eagle Crest, I just might have the place for you: this beautiful custom-built home by Frank Ring (one of the pre-eminent builders in Eagle Crest), located behind the gates of the Resort side of the development . The one-owner home, which is situated on a large, lushly landscaped half-acre lot, was built in 1994 and features three bedrooms and three baths, with a total of 3,518 square feet of living space. Special features can be found throughout the home , including a dramatic two-story vaulted entry, vaulted great room with cedar ceiling and stone fireplace with custom wood mantel, expansive kitchen, cedar sunroom and massive deck with custom-designed barbecue. The home features two master suites plus a third bedroom upstairs that also has an ensuite bath, which could also be used as a media room or office. Outside, the large deck with pergola overlooks the 14th fairway of the Eagle Crest Resort course. Mountain views of several peaks can be seen from multiple sites, both inside and outside the home. The two-car garage is attached to woodworking shop that’s wired for 220, which can also be accessed from inside the house. if you’d like to learn more about this property or would like to schedule a showing, call or text me at 541-480-0987. Here are a few photos of the home: ...

For many folks, buying a home can be a scary endeavor — the massive expense, the confounding closing process, the litany of potential pitfalls. Then there are those home buyers who actually look forward to taking on the additional challenge of working from scratch with a builder to construct a home designed specifically for them. My clients Bob and Janice are just such folks. I’d like to tell their story as it unfolds, in the hopes that it might demystify the building process a bit for those unfamiliar with how the whole thing works. Who knows; it might inspire you to take the new-construction leap yourself — or confirm your suspicion that you have no desire to ever undertake this particular home-buying experience. (See a chronological photo essay of Bob and Janice’s home-building process below.) When I first discussed a potential home purchase in Sisters with Bob and Janice (who currently live in Portland), their thought was to buy an already-built condo or townhome. After talking on the phone several times about their options in Sisters, we met on Aug. 18 to view several newer properties. Keep in mind, there are only a handful of developments in Sisters that even offer townhomes or condos (the town is a population of 2,000, after all), and we checked out most of them — viewing two townhomes in Timber Creek and three condos in Pine Meadow Village. The only property among those that seemed to capture their attention had just received an accepted offer and was no longer available. (Figures, no?) For our final stop, we walked through a Hayden Homes townhome in the Village at Cold Springs that was in mid-construction. The rooms had been...

The Residential With Acreage (RW) real estate market remained strong in Tumalo during September, with nine closed sales. (Last year at this time, there were just five sales.) Included in the Closed sales was yet another million-dollar sale; that’s the fourth straight month that Tumalo has had a million-dollar sale. What’s more, by the end of the month, two properties listed between $800,000-$850,000 were under contract. Although Tumalo has experienced more million-dollar sales activity this year than most markets within Central Oregon, the most popular price point for both Active listings and Closed sales in Tumalo during September was the $450,000-$499,000 bracket, with nine Active listings and four Closed sales. Also of note: For the first time since January 2012, the median price for Active listings dipped below $600,000 (to $575,000). Meanwhile, the lack of inventory continues to be a concern. Although we’re moving toward the slower winter months, there were fewer Tumalo listings in September than August. Entry-level horse properties are especially hard to come by: As in August, there were just four Active RW listings in Tumalo below $300,000. As a horse-property specialist, Tumalo has always been of particular interest to me because that’s where you’ll find many of the most desirable horse properties in Central Oregon. Because its boundaries are up to interpretation, please consider the following statistics a general barometer of the area’s real estate activity that includes most, but not necessarily all, of the listings in Tumalo. Here are a few highlights of the September Tumalo real estate market: LISTING ACTIVITY Active Residential With Acreage Listings in Tumalo: 53 Contingent Residential With Acreage Sales...

September was yet another good month for the Residential real estate market in Sisters. In fact, with 28 Closed sales, it was the highest-selling month so far this year. By comparison, last year at this time, there were 16 Closed sales. Among Single Family Residential (SFR) listings, it was once again the lower-priced and mid-range properties that saw the most sales activity. Sixteen of the 17 Closed SFR sales were below $500,000, and 11 of the 12 Pending SFR sales were below $300,000. What’s more, six of the Closed sales and five of the Pending sales were between $200,000-$250,000, making this once again the most popular price point for Sisters buyers. Within the Residential with Acreage (RW) segment, however, mid-range properties saw more sales activity: Five of the 11 Closed sales were between $400,000-$600,000. Meanwhile, three of the six Pending sales were above $650,000, including a property listed at $1,375,000. Which brings me to what is becoming a fairly dramatic contrast between the median price of Active SFR listings and Active RW listings. This wasn’t always the case: Two years ago, in September 2011, the median price for Active SFR listings was $495,000; the median price for Active RW listings was $499,000. In September 2013, on the other hand, the median price for Active SFR listings was $439,500, while the median price for Active RW listings was $795,000. That’s quite a jump! Considering that only one of the 11 Closed RW sales was above $700,000, that increase in list price might not bode well for RW sellers in Sisters who aggressively price their higher-end homes. They might just be...

Back in the day (before the economic melt-down), the sale of million-dollar homes in Central Oregon was pretty common. In 2007, for example, Sisters, Redmond and Bend (including Tumalo) had 118 sales of $1 million or more. Bend, was by far, the most popular locale for million-dollar buyers: It alone accounted for 95 of those sales. In those days, a million dollars didn’t even buy you a home on Mirror Pond — one located two blocks away sold for $1 million in 2007. Meanwhile, $2,250,000 got you a new 3,600-square-foot home in the ultra-exclusive golf community of Pronghorn Estates. For $3.5 million, you could buy a 4,600-square-foot home on 38 acres in Tumalo (the seller of that property, by the way, got his asking price). Fast-forward to 2010 — the low point in our million-dollar sales activity. At that point, there were just 18 million-dollar sales in Bend, Redmond and Sisters. The next two years weren’t much better, with just 20 and 19 million-dollar sales, respectively. So here we are, eight months into 2013, and the million-dollar sales activity has definitely picked up. I got a hint of the change back in March, when one of my clients made an offer on a million-dollar property that wasn’t even on the market at the time. While finalizing terms with the seller, we were informed that another buyer had submitted a higher offer. When was the last time there was a bidding war on a million-dollar property?! And on a property that wasn’t even listed? (My clients declined to play that game, moved on and purchased another property in Tumalo. But...

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About Lisa

Lisa Broadwater Cox, Broker, GRI, CDPE, is a Central Oregon-based real estate professional who specializes in listing and selling homes, especially in Sisters, Tumalo, Bend and Redmond.
She is licensed in Oregon.